What's the Difference between "Data" and "Information"?
I've been asking this question around and have been getting some interesting responses. Thoughts?
"To you, what is the difference between 'data' and 'information'?"
"To you, what is the difference between 'data' and 'information'?"
but when i use the words, i tend to refer to data as information that has been processed/arranged/sorted/whatever. data implies structured information. and of course, information can still be used, as a word, to refer to data. thats just how i tend to use it.
Data technologies -> information technologies -> knowledge technologies.
In the music example, data is the binary. Information is the song (format agnostic). Knowledge is knowing that the band is awesome, played such-and-such show, is in this genre, etc.
You know when you see it! Let's take another example.
Let's assume we have a series of temperature readings, 80, 40, 60, 90 degrees. Thay are data points. If we add timestamps to them then we it might reflect some process (I deliberately didn't mark them as Fahrenheit or Celsius) we could graph them to show changing temperature over time. If we add location data, say from a GPS, then taken together it is information about temperature at some location over a period of time, such as a weather bureau might have. Another example, take the number 84193221, what is it, if I say it's to do with John Smith, then you'd still be in the dark. I could say it's his phone number or his net worth in cents.
I like to think that a collection of data with specific relationships is information.